Friday, July 17, 2009

An Exclusive Interview with Pat Buchanan On Judge Sotomayor, the Future of America, and the New Racism Against White Men

The We Are Respectable Negroes News Network (WARNNN) has scored a coup. In an act of graciousness and generosity noted conservative commentator Pat Buchanan has agreed to an in depth interview with our fledgling news organization. By way of introduction, Mr. Buchanan is a former presidential candidate, a long time analyst and commentator for such news networks as CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, as well as a columnist for such publications as The National Review, American Prospect, and Human Events. Most recently, Pat Buchanan has been one of the most vocal and public critics of President Barack Obama, and in particular his nomination of Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court of the United States.

WARNNN: Hello Mr. Buchanan, it is a pleasure to finally meet you and we greatly appreciate your taking the time to sit down and chat with us.

Pat Buchanan: Of course, I have always enjoyed talking with members of the African American community, especially the black press. Oh, And I must complement you on the name of your website as one doesn't often hear the word "negro" that often anymore...it is comforting to know that it is still in use in some circles.

WARNNN: That is a surprise...thank you, I guess. Mr. Buchanan, with Judge Sotomayor's confirmation to the Supreme Court a relative certainty, what are your thoughts on the confirmation process and Judge Sotomayor more generally.

Pat Buchanan: As I am sure that you know, I have opposed her nomination from the beginning. She is an affirmative action candidate, unfit for this honor and distinction, and a fraud who has benefited from reverse racism her whole life--there is nothing she has accomplished without a handout at the expense of white men. In fact, she has benefited from being both a woman and a Latina. This type of bigotry is wholly unAmerican.

WARNNN: Strong words Mr. Buchanan. How would you respond to critics who would highlight her many years of judicial experience, her well-reasoned and meticulous legal decisions, and high praise from the American Bar Association, other judges, and colleagues, as reasons that she is imminently qualified for the highest court.

Pat Buchanan: Come on now! Let's be serious for a moment. The selection process which brought her this far was flawed in its foundations. President Obama, the reverse racist and political demagogue that he is, went out of his way to not select a white man for the Supreme Court. The fix was in from day one. Obama is a bigot who is determined to never see a white person do well in this country. It is his agenda. Ironic, considering that he is half-white.

WARNNN: Let me interject for a moment...

Pat Buchanan: No, hold on please. Do you really think that someone who read children's books in order to improve her diction is really worthy of being on the Court? And, she apparently met with her professors repeatedly to improve her writing while at Princeton. Sotomayor is a product of low expectations, guilty white liberals got her into Princeton over well qualified white kids who dreamed their whole lives that they would be in the Ivy League. She stole their rightful place, a place good, hardworking, white Americans had earned for them.

WARNNN: So the legacy admissions and "gentlemen C" students like George Bush and others who were grandfathered into places like Yale and Harvard are more deserving than someone who hustled to get there, and excelled when finally enrolled. There is something immoral about a young latina, or person of color being admitted to an elite university, while there is something correct and righteous about a privileged white student arriving there as a birthright? Is that what you want to say?

Pat Buchanan: You are twisting my words. Of course they belong their, America is a meritocracy and these rich white kids you mock--the prosperous Americans who drive this country forward--have every right to not be discriminated against. Plus, they have never received any handouts or help from programs like affirmative action so let's get that straight. Every step of her career has been because of affirmative action and reverse racism. I know for a fact that Sotomayor was given extra praise and stars on her papers in elementary school and pre-school at the expense of the white boys in her classes. Can you imagine how damaging that is to their self-esteem? When at Princeton, those guilty liberal professors fawned all over her and gave grades she didn't deserve. To boot, these same types of liberals even gave her a position on the law review later in her career, and engineered her graduating with honors from Princeton. Sotomayor's whole life trajectory has been at the expense of white men.

WARNNN: Returning to Sotomayor's hearing. How would you assess her performance during the confirmation? And how do you think the Senators did with their questioning.

Pat Buchanan: Sotomayor was unimpressive and dodged every question thrown at her--she was clearly out of her depth intellectually. The Democrats were predictable. Given that this is their nominee this was hardly surprising. I would like to commend Senators Sessions and Graham. They were courageous, absolutely honorable men. Sotomayor has no respect for the law, none at all. Her wise Latina comment demonstrates it. Plus, a judge is supposed to decide the law based not on feelings or emotions, but on reason and the facts. She plays identity politics and as Michael Steele said, God help any white man who comes before her in the court. Imagine, if a white man had made a similar comment? He would have been ridden out of town on a rail!

WARNNN: Well in fact, Senator Sessions has expressed sympathy for the KKK, called the NAACP a bunch of troublemakers and Communists, and once called a black attorney "boy." This didn't hurt his career did it?

Pat Buchanan: Stop dragging up the past it isn't relevant to this issue.

WARNNN: Strategically, and I want you to be critical and reflective, do you think that that the way that Senator Sessions tried to bully Sotomayor by repeatedly referencing the wise Latina comment, and how Senator Graham basically called her a "bitch" for lack of a better word will hurt the Republicans, or Senator Coburn's joke about Ricky Ricardo and the I Love Lucy Show was out of bounds? How will this play in the media?

Pat Buchanan: Republicans need to stop pandering to the mainstream media. We need to be honorable and stick to our convictions! There is a new Jim Crow in America and it is against the Frank Ricci's of the world, the New Haven 20, those good honest hardworking Joe Lunchpack, real Americans who are not getting a fair shake. These men have never had a leg up in any way in this country. They give and give and give, and now they have nothing left. It is absurd! The Republicans had better--as you are so fond of saying--speak truth to power on this issue. And we can't trust the media anyway. Just like Rush Limbaugh said about black quarterbacks, there is a vested interest in seeing minorities do well. Everyone knows it. The whole world has been invested in Judge Sotomayor doing well and they got their wish.

WARNNN: But, given your age and life experience, do you honestly believe that people, judges in particular, actually proceed from a basis where their own insight--or ability to empathize with other people--is not operative in their decisions?

Pat Buchanan: Frankly, look at the great men on the Supreme Court. They have never operated with any biases, prejudices, or most importantly the bigotry that Judge Sotomayor so cavalierly displays. The law is the law, and given what some of her colleagues have said about her she is histrionic and hyper-emotional. Sotomayor let's her identity influence her decision making. This is not the type of person we need on the high court.

WARNNN: So, the white men who passed laws such as Dredd Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson were proceeding from a neutral place? Their identities as privileged white men in an openly racist society didn't impact their decision making? To be direct, white men are simply...

Pat Buchanan: Normal, yes of course we are normal.

WARNNN: Can you repeat that?

Pat Buchanan: Normal, this is the white man's country and we should be proud of it. White men were the founding fathers, they wrote the constitution, they tamed the West, they were inventors and scientists and philosophers. European civilization is what made America great. White men should be proud of this fact. But, with identity politics and the rise of multiculturalism white men are made to feel ashamed as we are written out of history. These Sotomayors and others don't want to assimilate. Even her name and membership in such racist groups as La Raza smack of an unwillingness to enter the American mainstream. What about the great story where people come here, integrate, and lose all of that ethnic baggage. Geez, by now, Sotomayor if she were a real American interested in being in the mainstream of American society, would have renamed herself Jones or Smith, or something respectable like that.

WARNNN: For a moment, I thought you were going to start singing James Brown's song, "It's a Man's World."

Pat Buchanan: You may be tempted to dismiss this anger and hostility, but white men are not going to take this abuse any more and the Republican Party is missing a great opportunity by not standing up on this issue. Come on Chauncey, how can you not empathize with Frank Ricci, or the white students denied admission to the University of Michigan because of affirmative action, or those white policemen and firefighters who have only wanted to continue with the family business, a birthright of sorts, and had it taken away from them?

WARNNN: I think you are oversimplifying a set of complex issues. Moreover, you used the word empathy, so empathy is now okay?

Pat Buchanan: And, if you and other negro leaders were honest you would admit that Dr. King didn't die so that the Frank Ricci's of the world would be treated like this, absolutely not! The Civil Rights Movement was about our freedom too, don't ever forget that. White men have fought in wars, have marched for equal rights, served in Vietnam and Iraq and Korea, and made this country great for all sorts of people, we simply want our fair share.

WARNNN: You sound very impassioned. So you are saying that white men are hurting right now? That something is amiss?

Pat Buchanan: Damn right something is wrong and we are hurting. White men are the backbone of this country. Look at this semi-economic depression we are in, who is hurting the most? White men. While we are suffering who reaches out to us? Where is our affirmative action. Look at the grassroots activism out there, those wonderful tea parties of a few months back. Something is brewing in America and Obama better wake the hell up. Chauncey, white men are tired. We are tired of giving. We have given blacks welfare, housing programs, social security, child credits, all manner of set asides and entitlement programs, and what do we hardworking white men get? Nothing but resentment and demands. Black Americans have the highest standard of living of any blacks in the world, but they complain about slavery. Slavery brought you to the greatest country on Earth--and if America is so bad, why are Africans, the ones who sold your people into slavery, so desperate to come here?

WARNNN: I am rendered speechless by your honesty.

Pat Buchanan: White men have rights too. America was at its greatest point when we were the bright shining city on the hill that our most revered statesman Ronald Reagan alluded to in the 1980's. We need to get that America back again, and the Obama's and Sotomayor's of the world hate that America. White men need to wake up and stand up. We are angry and we aren't going to take it anymore!

WARNNN: That was powerful Pat, really powerful. We appreciate your candor and energy.

I am glad to see an honest interview with a white man unafraid of repercussions. Blacks need to get out from under so-called liberal whites who treat us the same way missionaries treat natives in African countries. Interview more real whites instead of the phony "I love Negroes on when I'm on cam" liberal whites.

Is it in their DNA? What is it about Irishman and being a bigot (too many of them on TV, Bill O'Reilly, Pat Buchanan, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck), on the one hand Pat Buchanan, slams Sotomayor because her Yale grades, her experience on the courts are not valid because they were handed to her because of her race or she real did not even earn it, on the other hand he adamantly supports Palin because of her accomplished background, please, what a joke, he is an Irish bigot, plain and simple, like most of his thoughts.

Tips and Support Are Always Welcome

Who is Chauncey DeVega?

I have been a guest on the BBC, National Public Radio, Ring of Fire Radio, Ed Schultz, Sirius XM's Make it Plain, Joshua Holland's Alternet Radio Hour, the Thom Hartmann radio show, the Burt Cohen show, and Our Common Ground.

I have also been interviewed on the RT Network and Free Speech TV.

I am a contributing writer for Salon and Alternet.

My writing has also been featured by Newsweek, The New York Daily News, Raw Story, The Huffington Post, and the Daily Kos.

My work has also been referenced by MSNBC, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Atlantic, The Christian Science Monitor, the Associated Press, Chicago Sun-Times, Raw Story, The Washington Spectator, Media Matters, The Gothamist, Fader, XOJane, The National Memo, The Root, Detroit Free Press, San Diego Free Press, the Global Post, The Lost Angeles Blade as well as online magazines and publications such as Slate, The Week, The New Republic, Buzzfeed, Counterpunch, Truth-Out, Pacific Standard, Common Dreams, The Daily Beast, The Washington Times, The Nation, RogerEbert.com, Ebony, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Fox News, Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Juan Williams, Herman Cain, Alex Jones, World Net Daily, Twitchy, the Free Republic, the National Review, NewsBusters, the Media Research Council, Project 21, and Weasel Zippers have made it known that they do not like me very much.